I Am The Person My Parents Warned Me About
by Red Witch
Summary: Zach does a little reflecting on why his life is so strange lately. And the people who make it so.


**Zach blasted apart the disclaimer telling all of you that I don't own any Galaxy Rangers characters with his thunderbolt. Just thought I'd do a point of view from Zach's perspective for a change. And how he must think of what his life has become. **

**I Am The Person My Parents Warned Me About**

When did my life get so nuts?

Oh right, the day my wife got captured by space pirates and turned into a slaver lord by an insane queen of an evil empire.

That was also the day I turned into the Bionic Man. The real kicker is that I've never trusted technology. Or at least the type of technology that turns a living breathing person into the Tin Woodsman's second cousin. I think having conservative religious parents does that to a person.

Lately I keep hearing that old Jimmy Buffett song in my head: We Are The People Our Parent's Warned Us About.

Don't ask me to sing it. I forgot the words.

Let me explain something about my parents. They were really decent people, they just were rather…opinionated on certain issues. I just didn't realize it until I got older.

Growing up as a kid my life was like one of those very early fifties television shows. Where the mother stayed home and was gentle and wise. The father was strict but loving and the kids got into reasonably tame mischief but were mostly obedient. We went to church every Sunday and grandma's house every holiday. I lived the typical Norman Rockwell lifestyle and didn't know any different way to live.

My kids hang around aliens, a robot, a genetic mutant, a psychic and sneak off on missions to alien planets. They've had to deal with pirates, alien invasions, giant ants and every other kind of weirdness the universe throws at them while their mother is in the Cryocrypt and I go zipping around with my loony team mates into even weirder and more violent situations in order to save the universe.

If my father was still alive and saw my life he'd die of a heart attack. There are times when I can actually hear him rolling over in his grave.

Let's start with the obvious. Waldo and Zozo. I can hear my mother screaming from beyond the grave. She never trusted aliens that much. Of course she had several relatives get killed in alien attacks in the early years of first contact so that may have clouded her judgment. This was long before Waldo and Zozo arrived on a peaceful mission. I'd go into a detailed history lesson but I'll save it for another time.

I was on the ship assigned to escort the two aliens during the first contact. That's how I got to know them so well. They became close friends of the family.

Goose became another close friend. Almost like a brother to me. I never thought I'd trust a Supertrooper so much, much less have one on my team. At the time I just wanted my wife back so badly I didn't care if Goose was the Queen of the Crown's twin sister as long as he'd help me. Sure we had a few disagreements at first since our styles are so different but…

I don't know how it happened but we just ironed out our differences without even talking about it. We fell almost perfectly in synch. It was like we knew each other our entire lives. I think it's because we have something in common, having people we care about in the Cryocrypt and we each blame ourselves for them being there.

He's also seen as much combat in his young life than I have, probably more. When you've been in the service a while you can kind of tell these things. I remember the first time I saw him. When he was assigned to my team he was fresh out of the academy, eighteen years old. But as soon as he walked into the room I could see he had the hardened stance and eyes of a combat veteran.

God only knows what he went through in his short life to make him that way. I don't know all the details of what went on at Wolf Den and something tells me I'm better off **not** knowing.

Once in a while, when we're on a long mission or extended situation I've seen Goose sleep. Usually he's still but every now and then I see him react to some bad dream or memory. It's usually a twitch followed by a very restrained whimper. Too restrained. It's like he's been conditioned to stay in control even when he's asleep. It's almost frightening to watch.

I never tell him that I've seen that. I respect his privacy too much to do so.

Speaking of privacy there's the female member of our team, Niko. You know there was a time when I was actually worried what someone would find if they read my mind? But we've all linked our thoughts and our powers so many times when we use our badges together it's almost become second nature for all of us to get a glimpse into each other's minds.

She's really something else. A psychic human raised on a secret hidden world. She's in her mid twenties but she has the mind of a hundred year old mystic. Not to mention a temper that can rival Goose when she has a mind to it. I'm serious. You do **not **want to get on that woman's bad side. I've seen her do things to some low life scum who made the mistake of hitting on her that would make seasoned torturers cringe.

No wonder she and Goose get along so well.

There's a betting pool going around when those two will finally break down and admit how they feel for each other. But Goose and Niko are far too professional to let their personal feelings get in the way. I know they won't do anything to jeopardize the team. And I hope they continue to stave off their romantic feelings towards each other.

At least until December. I've got that month marked down in the betting pool. Then they can get together. And I can get my two hundred and fifty credits.

Now that I think about it, I never really gambled much until I joined the Series Five Team. Of course we gamble with our lives every day so gambling with money seems so trivial…

Don't forget about Doc. That man is trouble with a capital T. More than once after a mission I've ended up in an odd predicament because of his crazy ideas or drunk because he wants to take me out for a night on the town. Sometimes I think he's more of a con artist than a computer hacker.

I've read the man's file that he came from a privileged and wealthy family but I've heard a lot of rumors as well. Everything from his family was part of an organized crime syndicate to he did a lot of illegal hacking and made up his fancy background. Now that I think about it, I know even less about Doc's past than I do about Niko's and Goose's. I just never thought about it.

I know for sure he was born in Jamaica and he's reasonably wealthy. And he went to a fancy prep school. A prep school that's more secretive than Yale's Skull and Bones Society. A prep school that had lessons in fighting with swords, blasters and fist fighting as well as manners and dancing.

What kind of school **is** that?

Oh my God…

I really don't know much about Doc's past at all.

That's part of his charm. He's just so damn smooth he can misdirect you to whatever he wants. Most of the time. I know he keeps talking me into playing poker with him at least once a month and I always fall for it even though I lose every time.

Of course Doc rarely plays poker against Goose. Not even he's crazy enough to try and con money out of a Supertrooper on a regular basis.

So let's take stock here: I am a bionic man who hangs around with a psychic, a genetically engineered Supertrooper, aliens and a computer hacker who has more than one occasion gotten me drunk and into trouble.

And every day I go into outer space with these people to fight off smugglers, pirates, bandits, crown agents, slaver lords, mob bosses, bronto bears, genetically engineered mutant cattle, sorcerers, crazy scientists that want to rule the universe, demons, blobs…giant marshmallows…Oh and once a big giant purple prairie dog.

There was also that incident when we were all a rock band for a day and won a contest…That was a real weird mission.

And these are the people who have been keeping me **sane** while I try to deal with my wife's absence?

No doubt about it: I am the person my parents warned me about.

And the scary part is I like it.


End file.
